Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> OK, so let's ask Wolfram Alpha:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/l7djfe
>
> Logically, you might expect there to be a correlation between how rare a
> profession is and how much they get paid. I don't see one.
>
> You might also expect dangerous jobs to pay more. Doesn't seem to be the
> case.
>
> So how about how skilled the job is? Well, there's kind-of a correlation
> there...
>
> But mostly, I'm just surprised that [except for doctors, who are the
> clear outliers here] programmers supposedly earn more than everybody
> else, by quite some margin. (You'd expect the accountants to be ahead by
> a mile...)
>
> Ooo, lawyers? Nope, apparently they earn (substantially) less than
> doctors. [But of course, this is only on average... No range figures to
> go at.]

Firemen don't get well paid for 2 reasons:

1) For every job advertised, there are MANY applicants - so economics keeps the
pay down.

2) It isn't a particularly dangerous job. Google 'Britain's most dangerous
jobs'. Fireman isn't even on the list for the first pick. I tried to find out
how
many firemen there are in Britain and failed, but while there are 103 per
100,000 fisherman fatalities and 3.7 per 100,000 construction worker
fatalities, firemen are well trained and equipped. Fatalities happen when they
go into huge warehouses that collapse on them, not in house fires.

Mind you, fishermen aren't too well paid either.

As for doctors vs accountants and lawyers, doctors tend to like to feel
important and will therefore over-report salaries, while accountants are well
used to minimising tax and will tend to undereport salaries. And there are
quite a few 'accountants' in low grade jobs.

As for lawyers, they are (on average) a bunch of money grubbing, lying, self
important, devious shysters who have no more respect for equity and justice
than they have for their clients. I don't know what bearing that has on
reported salaries.

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